


the path back

by emilycare



Series: beehives and honeycomb [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Missing Scene, Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,703
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27267295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilycare/pseuds/emilycare
Summary: Sherlock longing for John while they are parted inlean into a loved body.A 'missing' scene from Chapter 5, full of lots of regret.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: beehives and honeycomb [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1875580
Comments: 19
Kudos: 56





	the path back

**Author's Note:**

> By [emilycare](https://archiveofourown.org/users/emilycare), with edits and permission from [simplyclockwork](https://archiveofourown.org/users/simplyclockwork).
> 
> Edited to match some details with the original story.

Sherlock faded back to consciousness still feeling John's warm weight in his arms. He'd been dreaming of their kiss. Again. The velvet contact of mouths suddenly famished for the touch of the other. The gleam of sunlight on John's kiss-wet lips as they parted for breath. The devouring look in those ocean dark eyes. Then the hushed sound of rain on the roof as the vision broke apart with the return to waking. 

He glanced at the clock and calculations rushed unbidden to his mind. One hundred seventeen hours and forty-seven minutes since he had last seen John. Through a haze of bees, backing away with that travesty of a smile on his face. Apologizing to Sherlock for bothering him. Practically tripping in his haste to get away. Ignoring the increasingly frantic pleas Sherlock made for John to listen to him, to let him explain. 

His gut churned with distress and guilt. Turning over onto his belly, he covered his head with a pillow, willing the image of John's luminous smile dissolving into confusion and regret to disappear. 

He bit his lip, holding the sensitive tissue tight until the threat of puncture brought him back to himself. Pulling his torso upright slowly, he punched the pillow. Cursing again the impulse that had made him shift from comfort to something more in the quiet half-light of John's kitchen. 

It had been one hundred and thirty-four hours and fifty-eight minutes since he had kissed John. Since he felt those soft lips tighten in surprise, then loosen and open and felt the responsive surge of John's desire welcome him in. 

He _had_ felt it, hadn't he? Hadn't dreamed it? But Sherlock knew from bleak experience how swiftly the heat of a moment could shift to bitterness and self-reproach. He had offered support, then taken advantage of John's vulnerability. 

Sherlock rose from bed and mechanically went about his morning routine in the dove grey twilight of dawn. He tried to rinse the taste of his own self **-** disgust out with a mouthful of toothpaste. He piled on layers of armor against regret for the friendship his thoughtless desire had discarded, with each button fastened, and each brushstroke in his hair.

He filled his mug with coffee and skimmed the paper for traces of some shrouded malfeasance or wrongdoing he could uncover. But his thoughts kept drifting. He watched the rain drip forlornly off leaves of a sprawling maple as his gaze was tugged back yet again to the direction of John's house. Tantalizingly close, the brief distance mocked him. 

As he'd gone about his business during the week, John's location had been on his mind. Like the hum of distant electrical lines, invisible yet palpable.

John's absence from his side had been a continual ache. Scrubbing his lab equipment and beekeeping supplies while pondering the stochastic pattern of the break-ins, he'd imagined he could hear the snip of John's cutters or thwack of his axe. When he wrapped Lestrade's bleeding hand in a tea towel and sent him packing off to the clinic, his heart had skipped across the lanes to contemplate jumper-clad, hunched shoulders and stress tousled silver-gold hair.

As he walked home after dinner with Mrs. Hudson, the pulse of each step tempted him to take the turn to John's sturdy little house. To climb up his steps, to beat on his door, to beg him to listen. To lay his head on the man's lap and tell him how he'd missed hearing the sound of his breath. Tell him how he couldn't himself breathe thinking he might never see John's eyes light up again with mischievous glee. How he woke most nights gripping the sheets **,** caught between heartache with wonder at the chance he'd had to comfort John from waking nightmare, to plunging into despair at the prospect of never seeing his sleep heavy eyes sharpen with desire. How he rolled back over, weighed down with bitterness and contrition. Seeking the annihilation of sleep, his thoughts tangling with bittersweet gratitude and excruciating hope that he might yet be forgiven.

A knock at the door. How long? "Sherlock? I know you're in there." 

Torn between relief and irritation at being disturbed mid-wallow, Sherlock barked, "What is it Lestrade?"

"Seriously? You're going to make me talk to this closed door? C'mon, mate. I've got news." 

Sherlock stalked over to the doorway. He pulled it open eagerly. "You've got those case files, then?" 

Lestrade stood slouched against the wall, a self-satisfied smile on his face and the glass necks of his homebrew peeking out from a bag on his arm. "No, not that kind of news." Sherlock huffed in frustration, making to close the door, but Greg wedged it open with his foot. "Trust me you'll want to hear this."

 _John,_ Sherlock thought, licking his lips in anxiety. He shrugged, shaking his head, and let the man enter. 

Lestrade placed the bag on the kitchen table as he made himself at home. The friendly ring of the bottles clinking together made Sherlock twitch with impatience. "A bit early for that, isn't it?"

Greg grinned. "Right, yes. Some tea would be nice." He looked expectantly at the kettle. Rolling his eyes, Sherlock filled and set the kettle with crisp motions and too much force. He took out mugs and tea bags, then turned and leaned back against the counter to face Lestrade.

"So, you saw John?"

"Yes," Greg began with a slight questioning inflection to his voice.

Sherlock interrupted harshly, "Obviously. I sent you to the clinic yesterday. John's just started, so they're likely giving him as many cases as they can, to put him through what paces this quiet little town could possibly offer someone who's seen military engagement. And of course you would ask to be seen by him, to give yourself a chance to meddle properly." The water came to boil, and he grabbed the handle, pouring the water with precision and disdain. "So now you're here to let me know that..." but here Sherlock trailed off. His mind offered a myriad of equally disheartening options for what John had shared with Lestrade. His polite but empty dismissal of the query. A cordial desire for him and Sherlock to talk. A distant yet generous offer of forgiveness. Perhaps they could start over as acquaintances. 

_I've done it again. I chase everyone off. But John..._

He slammed the mug down in front of Lestrade. "Tell me your news, and then please let me be. I'm very busy and I've no time for your nonsense." His eyes hard, his heart breaking.

Lestrade picked up the mug and eyed Sherlock mildly. "It's not what you think." 

"Oh, what is it that I'm thinking? Please, _do_ tell," snarled Sherlock. 

"He thought you sent him away," Greg said, then sipped his tea, grimacing at the bitterness. "No sugar?" He rose to add his own, leaving Sherlock to slump down on a chair, wondering if he was brave enough to face hope after all. 

"Oh, my god. He thinks I've been ignoring him, all this time..." Sherlock leapt to his feet, crossing the living room lightning fast to pick up his phone where it sat abandoned next to a half-full beaker and black feathers haphazardly set on the coffee table. He pulled up the messaging app, but then his fingers lingered over the screen, unsure of what to say or how to communicate all he'd been thinking in this long, anxious, too-empty week. He walked back to the table and sat down across from Lestrade, defeated by his own uncertainty. 

"Here." The man shoved the bottles of homebrew toward him. "Don't overthink it. Just go visit him. He wants to see you." 

* * *

Some agonizingtime later found Sherlock nervously walking through the margins of his yard. Past the apple trees, blossoms now quiet, the bees tucked up tight in their hives to hide from the rain. He walked beneath the rangy maple that caught his eye earlier. It spread its arms wide above the head of a winding suggestion of a trail. A route Sherlock had taken to reach John's house so many times.

Until the past few days. 

The weight of the clouds had lightened, but the soft _drip-drip_ of water from branches and leaves continued. A large drop hit Sherlock on the neck and rolled down below his collar, setting him to shiver. He hugged the bottles he held closer and concentrated on slowing his breath, observing the leaves and flowers he passed. A spray of green and gold magnified by brimful water droplets. The mottled purplish-green of blackberry bracken rambling across sun filled slots in the woods.

He struggled to keep his thoughts from surging ahead down the path, into a fractured future that led Sherlock, unpardoned and untouched, away from John Watson's door. One where he slipped back into a trajectory that only two weeks ago had felt lonesome yet secure, steady if not more than passingly exciting. But certainly not alluring, full of fascination, even hinting at rapture. 

He ached for an opportunity to correct some misapprehensions, while trying desperately not to think about more. 

He saw the woodpecker-sculpted snag that announced the line of John's land. Newly hewn trees were piled in neatly, beside a towering pile of slash he'd not seen before. He emerged into tentative sunshine sooner than he'd expected. Vulnerable and visible in a stretch of meadow John's hands had reclaimed. 

His breath stuttered as he caught sight of John, sitting on the porch with an empty chair beside him. His eyes were closed with his head leaned back, bathing in the daylight.

The flutter of Sherlock's pulse beat wildly. He moved closer, drawn like a sunflower compassing towards a private sun.

He reached the porch. Those eyes opened and Sherlock was anchored by John's gaze. 

Sherlock drank in the sight of the man. That amber hair appearing platinum-gold to Sherlock's eyes in the noon-touched air. The lips that parted into a smile. The eyes lit up with gratitude and promise. The hands opening, effortlessly gifting Sherlock's ownheartbeat back to him with an easy gesture of welcome. 

Sherlock walked up the steps and dared to hope for a glimpse of home. 


End file.
